24 



INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY — PUBUCATION NO. 1 1 



and all of the lake frontage fall within the domains 

 of Santa Fe. Only two areas ever claimed by 

 Santa Fe are now considered to belong to Quiroga 

 town. One is the area of the former rancho of 

 Samano or Soamano which Santa Fe claimed as 

 late as 1711, but which was possessed by inhabit- 

 ants of Tzintzuntzan into the 1880's, and which 

 came under the control of Quiroga through 

 private purchase by citizens of Quiroga. The 

 other area is the western portion of cuarteles I and 

 II (to the west of a line drawn approximately 

 north and south thi'ough the middle of the Plaza 

 Vieja) which was purchased by the villa of Quiroga 

 in 1861. This area (described as "Terrenos de 

 La Fabrica, La Atzitzindaro, y la Plaza Vieja") 

 was divided as follows: The private lands re- 

 mained in the possession of the original owners, 

 but these landowners became citizens of Quiroga; 

 and the public lands or commons became the 

 property of the villa and were utOized for water 

 supply (spring of Atzitzindaro and Baiio de 

 Caballos) and for recreation (the Plaza Vieja 

 became the Plaza de la Constitucion, with trees 

 planted and a fountain erected). Possibly the 

 Villa de Quiroga still holds title to the abandoned 

 quarry (La Cantera) on the slopes of Tzirate 

 which was worked in the second half of the nine- 

 teenth century and to which a title was obtained. 

 Although at present many citizens of Quiroga 

 town own properties northwest of town, within 

 Santa Fe area, no change in jurisdiction has been 

 recognized. This condition has been perpetuated 

 because the landholders of both Quiroga and Santa 

 Fe inscribe their lands and pay their taxes in 

 Quiroga. 



The boundary between the municipality of Qui- 

 roga and the municipality of Tzintzuntzan is the 

 most indefinite of all at the present time. This 

 is because the parish of Quiroga was a vicariate 

 of the parish of Tzintzuntzan until 1853, and be- 

 cause Tzintzuntzan was a part of the municipality 

 of Quiroga from 1874 until 1930. So far as the 

 municipality of Quiroga is concerned, the dispute 

 is between the Villa de Quh-oga and the Rancho 

 de Patambicho; between the Rancho de Ziran- 

 dangacho and the ranchos of Patambicho and 

 Puerta de Cuenembo; between the Rancho de 

 Atzimbo and the ranchos of Cuenembo, La Noria, 

 and El Tigre; and between the Rancho de Sa- 

 nambo and the Rancho del Tigre. In general, 

 the boundary is now considered to be determined 



by the residence of the owners of lands in the dis- 

 puted zone. The boundary as of the sixteenth 

 and seventeenth centuries was presumably the 

 Arroyo del Salto which flows into Lake Patzcuaro 

 near Patambicho. In the eighteenth century and 

 up to 1880 Quiroga recogaized that all of the 

 lands from the very exits of Quiroga southward 

 belonged to Tzintzuntzan. In the acias of the 

 ayuntamiento in the 1870's there are such state- 

 ments as: "the boundary of this town is the gate 

 at the exit on the Calle Nacional"; "the limits are 

 the Arroyo de Quiroga" ; and "the Rancho Samano 

 of the jurisdiction of Tzintzuntzan." It should be 

 mentioned here that the AiToyo de Quiroga 

 formerly flowed southeast, aloQg the very southern 

 edge of Quiroga, to join the AiToyo del Cerro Azul 

 just below the Abasto Viejo and the stone bridge 

 on the road to Zirandangacho, but some years ago 

 it was diverted at its exit from towTi through a 

 channel cut so that it flows west to the Calle del 

 Muelle and then along the boundary with Santa 

 Fe until its scanty waters disappear in the herbage 

 near the margins of the lake. Even today the 

 term Llano de Tzintzuntzan is applied to all of the 

 arable land in the lake plain outlined by the 

 settlements of Quiroga, Zirandangacho, and Pat- 

 ambicho. However, the acquisition of the prop- 

 erties knowTi as Samano, La Teneria, Zirandan- 

 gacho, San Diego, Tucurullo, etc., by citizens of 

 Quiroga town (such as Geronimo Ponce and Jesiis 

 Villanueva) since the ISSO's has moved the bound- 

 ary back to its early position along the Arroyo del 

 Salto — at least so far as the tax collector's ofHce is 

 concerned. The local citizens are not in agree- 

 ment as to the location of the southern boimdary 

 and are quite apt to mention the Arroj^o del Cerro 

 Azul or other boundaries. In the eastern sector 

 of the Quiroga-Tzintzuntzan boundary the Arroyo 

 del Salto is commonly accepted as the boundary 

 line upstream as far as where the Mexico City- 

 Guadalajara highway bridges the arroyo, but some 

 of the local citizens insist that the true boundary 

 runs a trifle to the west and roughly parallel to 

 the stream and is defined by the traces of the now 

 abandoned highway from Morelia to Tzintzuntzan 

 and Patzcuaro via Capula, Atzimbo, and the 

 Puerta de Cuenembo. This same old road con- 

 stitutes much of the boundary between the 

 ranchos of Sanambo and El Tigre. 



The remainder of the Quiroga municipal bound- 

 ary is with the municipality of Morelia. In general 



